NASA just lost $6 billion. But that’s not the real story. The real story is what we’re finally getting for the money we keep.
The Trump administration has proposed a dramatic shift in NASA’s funding, slashing certain scientific programs while boosting efforts to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon and prepare for crewed missions to Mars. This isn’t retreating from science — it’s redirecting toward exploration, strategy, and national strength.
Some spending cuts are needed. NASA is as much a part of the bureaucratic state as the FBI or the Department of Justice. Just as those agencies have an incentive to expand their powers, so too does NASA — with as many novel scientific missions as possible.
NASA might want to redirect focus away from failing projects, but that often involves the loss of jobs in multiple congressional districts (it was designed that way). So Congress demands continued funding for outdated programs to protect jobs.
The president has proposed a massive 24 percent cut to the agency’s budget — reducing it from $24.9 billion to $18.8 billion — by eliminating several key missions, including its Science Mission Directorate (cut by $2.26 billion); Earth science research (cut by $1.16 billion); funding for the International Space Station (down $508 million); and other projects, including the cancellation of the Gateway international space station planned to orbit the Moon, according to NASA’s official budget release.
Why the pivot? To make room for the big push to establish permanent human presence on the Moon and send astronauts to Mars for the first time.
Need for a Mission
The Trump administration is signaling that it wants every dollar allocated to space — whether through the military or NASA — to focus on one aim: securing a strategic position on the Moon so that the U.S. is not excluded from the essential gas station the lunar south pole will become.
NASA needs to redefine its mission. It was built to get Americans to the Moon before the Soviets. Once that was established, NASA’s mission got murky. We built space stations and developed a semi-reusable shuttle, but the long-term vision remained unclear.
Since 2011, when SpaceX established itself in this domain, NASA’s mission has only become more convoluted. The last three NASA administrators have shown us that they do not want to work on building and maintaining space stations or massive rockets. They have tried to cut these large-budget items multiple times. Instead, they want to focus on hard science — the kind with no immediate economic return, but with long-term scientific value, such as the James Webb Telescope, the Psyche missions, or research on the International Space Station.
So why is the Trump administration cutting funding for both the massive rocket NASA doesn’t want to build and the scientific directives it is uniquely suited for?
One reasons is NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), while symbolically significant, has cost more than $24 billion to develop and carries a $4.1 billion price tag per launch. In contrast, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy offers similar lift capacity for around $100 million per launch. Looking ahead, SpaceX’s Starship — currently under development with an estimated research and development cost of about $10 billion — aims to reduce per-launch costs even further with greater payload to orbit than the SLS. Elon Musk has projected eventual launch prices as low as $10 million.
This stark contrast in cost and efficiency underscores the rationale behind the administration’s decision to phase out the SLS after its third Artemis mission in 2027 — freeing up resources to establish a strategic perimeter in cislunar space.
China Competition
The Trump administration, along with many in the space community, believes the Chinese Communist Party is making rapid advancements in space technology. They argue that if the U.S. fails to take this threat seriously, China will land a permanent presence on the most valuable geography outside Earth: the water-rich craters of the Moon.
Official Chinese government sources confirm that Beijing plans to conduct a crewed lunar landing by 2030, targeting the Moon’s south pole — an area rich in water ice, essential for fuel and life support. From there, China could employ the same exclusionary tactics it uses in the South China Sea, effectively blockading access to lunar resources and preventing the U.S. and its allies from establishing productive operations.
By refocusing NASA on establishing permanent lunar operations, the Trump administration is making the strategic decision to get to the Moon first, no matter the scientific cost. Presumably, once this takes place and the private sector has filled the last gaps in space launch and logistics, NASA can return to its scientific directives — and do so from a new and improved vantage point, renting slots on a Moon base. But until that infrastructure is developed, the Trump administration needs NASA to set the science aside.
This directional change signals that America is done drifting. By focusing our space resources on lunar and Martian infrastructure, the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for a sustained American presence in the next great theater of strategic competition.
NASA has long suffered from shifting political winds, its mission rewritten every few years. This move gives NASA the clarity to plant the flag — then return to groundbreaking science.
It’s why Jared Isaacman, a private-sector trailblazer, was nominated to lead: so NASA can, just this once, act like the NASA of the ’60s again — doing the impossible before returning to the unimaginable.
For now, NASA is being asked to eat its vegetables and help the U.S. lock in its strategic position in space. There will be protestations. But the Moon must be secured first — for America and for our allies.
Vincent Mirolli is a space policy advocate and economic strategist based in Washington, D.C. He holds a degree in finance and has written extensively on space investment, national strategy, and demographic economics. He is pursuing a graduate degree in space resource utilization and believes America’s future in space is key to preserving its power here on Earth.
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